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Maybe the handedness indicates the political party one belongs to. Or maybe that's how one recognizes the good Vulcans and bad Vulcans, or evil twins in alternate universes. (The Latin "sinister" also means left, on the left, as well as awkward, wrong, perverse, unlucky, injurious, which may be why left-handed people were persecuted throughout history. Fans of OH! MY GODDESS may have noticed that World of Elegance's black wing is on the left.)

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"No, I better not look. I just might be in there."
—Foghorn Leghorn, Little Boy Boo

Maybe it's just whether you're right-handed or left-handed, and doesn't really matter according to Vulcan social conventions. There's no physical contact like with a handshake. It might be more like a wave.

I think a FAR better question is "why would an alien custom necessary have to follow any traditional human paradigms?"

I think we have a winner...

And the answer is so that the human, American, 1960s audience will be able to understand, if not relate to, the characters.

As for the Vulcan salute, we all know it originates with the blessing of the Cohanim. What's funny is that many people, like Celia Lovsky, couldn't do it, so someone assisted manually before the cameras rolled, and they just kept their hand in that position and raised it up at the right time.

And the answer is so that the human, American, 1960s audience will be able to understand, if not relate to, the characters.

In the 60s, the 2 finger peace sign salute was quite popular.

Was this hand gesture always used with the same hand? I think that the generation of the 60s that used this hand gesture could relate quite comfortably with the Vulcan salute without it mattering which hand the salute or gesture was made with.

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We are quicksilver, a fleeting shadow, a distant sound... our home has no boundaries beyond which we cannot pass. We live in music, in a flash of color... we live on the wind and in the sparkle of a star! Endora, Bewitched

And the answer is so that the human, American, 1960s audience will be able to understand, if not relate to, the characters.

In the 60s, the 2 finger peace sign salute was quite popular.

Was this hand gesture always used with the same hand? I think that the generation of the 60s that used this hand gesture could relate quite comfortably with the Vulcan salute without it mattering which hand the salute or gesture was made with.

I know that gesture dates at least as far back as WWII (V for Victory), and might go back earlier than that.

Richard Nixon frequently used both hands in the pose when arriving at a destination to greet well-wishers.

Nimoy picked this gesture because it was an old Jewish hand gesture that he thought would work for the character. I'm not sure if using it with a particular hand was something that got deemed important. There's tons of reasons to be used to explain why they could use it with different hands.